busy signal.....draft two.

"She's not answering her phone, something must be wrong, this isn't like her, there's definitely something wrong, please, Lynn, answer your phone, I'm sorry, I know I've wronged you, please just tell me you're alive, please;.baby, PLEASE!"

J.C.'s mind was racing, imagining a thousand scenarios by which Lynn's evening had come to pass. One might say that harsh words had been exchanged the night before, but doing so would imply reaction on her part. Instead she sat and listened as he rattled off every insult a woman should never be called. This was nothing new, his M.O. was to say what came to mind as soon as it came to mind with complete disregard for the impact of his often harsh words. No longer blind drunk, he phoned her that morning to beg for her forgiveness or at least a chance to make things right. She reluctantly obliged, allowing him an undeserved opportunity to redeem himself. He wasn't going there to make-up; his "hidden agenda" was sex and she knew it.

Twenty five times he tried in vain to reach her during the course of the forty minute ride. Each call consisted of five rings before the answering machine picked up. He merely wanted to apologize for leaving three hours later than promised, but now he had become obstinate, focused on worry that would not subside until she answered. "What the hell is going on, she never does this," he pondered, basing his assumption on the fact that she had always been there for him. During the course of their tumultuous relationship, the phone never rang more than two or three times before her sweet voice greeted him, resonating with passions of adolescent love. He took this for granted, as he did her, time and time again. To her friends and family he was a monster, hardly worthy of her love let alone her pity. But she wouldn't leave no matter how verbally abusive he became. She couldn't will herself to bolt, blinding him by the dust of his own misery. She hoped and prayed that he'd make it out of the dark times: three arduous years of severe depression that infected his mind mere months after their chance meeting on New Years Eve of the new millennium.

And three years later on a gray February Sunday afternoon, he navigated through subdivisions and strip malls, concrete jungles born of baby booms and urban sprawl. His hangover was subsiding, but his conscience was hardly calm. Two voices, or shall I say, angels fought one another on the battlefront of his mind. The fallen angel, a hate filled, verbally abusive, wretched, substance abusing bastard, was in control and had been since March of 2000. As J.C. filled the voids with vicious vices, the fallen one grew stronger, crushing the enlightened one; choking him of reason, knowledge, beauty and truth. The enlightened one had but a seed of trust and a drop of hope in those years of spiritual drought. Rains of redemption were the only saving grace that could bring life to withering fields of fear and despair.

Deceptive words were whispered into his conscience by the fallen angel, convincing him that he had wronged her for the last time. Panic lit his nerve endings with a jolt of 50,000 volts, manifesting body tremors and palpitations of a shattered heart. "Why aren't you answering your phone Lynn?," his voice grew louder, although he was talking to no one, "Lynn, pick up the phone, please, pick it up." A traffic light turned red as his car blew through the intersection nearly clipping a van full of twelve year olds headed to Chuck-E-Cheese. Adrenalin and anxiety merged into absolute madness as he dialed in yet another futile attempt to reach the object of his disaffection.

"This is Lynn, I'm not around to take your call, leave me a message after the beep." Lynn placed her ear near the answering machine as her ex-boyfriend shouted, "God damn it, pick up, don't tell me you're gone, don't tell me you're gone." She pressed erase as a dial tone echoed through her apartment. A warm rush of contentment filled her bloodstream, soothing long battered nerves. For the first time in three years she tasted a sweet spoonful of emotional liberation. She had finally taken her first step into the clearing by dishing him a taste of his own bitter medicine. A smirk fell upon her face as she drew the shades and turned off the lights.